In Which Heaven Becomes Not Boring
by Elfriend
Summary: Written for the #SPNWishList fest from the prompt "What if OG Charlie and Ash were pals in Heaven?" Cover image is sketched by the author in colored pencil on Arches hot press watercolor paper.


Charlie stepped out of the tent and considered her kingdom...such as it was.

Apparently Moondoor was what whoever pulled the levers up here had decided was Charlie's idea of Heaven. Could be worse, but knowing what she knew, which, as usual, was more than most people in a given situation, kinda sucked the joy right out of it.

At first it had been ok. She forgot about the dying thing, and thought she was here to LARP, but apparently Heaven couldn't decide if she was LARPing or tripping balls, offering her a bizarre combination of the limits of human reality, and a mish-mosh of fantasy.

Basically, there were just too flipping many glitches in the Matrix. For one thing, the spells all actually worked, now, though you still had to throw a beanbag in order to cast them.

Also, randomly, the elf ears seemed to be real, here, but the orc teeth weren't.

Under those circumstances, it took almost no time for Charlie to figure out things were off, and once she did, she remembered everything.

Gilda turned to smile at her before waving and winking out. Charlie sighed. Even having a fairy girlfriend isn't as fun as you might think, when you know the only actually, really, real thing in Fake, Fake Moondoor is you.

Fact is, Charlie was bored out of her mind.

She turned and took a step toward the technology tent, which is where she'd been spending most of her time. It was another strange combination of real and Matrix glitch, but she had managed to cob together some useful things, including an angel radio scanner. With not much else to do, leveling up her Enochian fluency was a no-brainer.

Things had been creepily quiet lately, though. Charlie generally spent her time in the tent hoping against hope for pretty much anything interesting to happen.

Then, without warning, the ground shook and something interesting did.

Before her eyes, the southern battlefield was instantly transformed into a giant tsunami of black sludge. It washed up to the edges of the tents engulfing several of the outermost shelters. Charlie sprinted toward her technology haven, while her pretend, pretend subjects bowed and curtsied as their queen passed. None of them noticed the wave of goop, even when it overtook and swept right over some of them.

Then, suddenly, it was simply gone. It didn't pass, or fade, it just blinked out, along with everything it had touched. The actual limits of her Heaven had been invisible, before. She could see into the distance just as if the distance existed, even though it didn't, but now she couldn't. Her Moondoor had shrunk to about half its size and had...walls?

Only a few characters remained, still showing no signs of noticing anything was wrong, except one. Just one of them, who she couldn't identify, ran around the corner of the technology tent and ducked inside.

Now _that _was interesting.

Fumbling in her belt pouch, Charlie retrieved a beanbag and flung it as she bounded into the tent, shouting, "Reveal Magic!"

The intruder looked down at his chest curiously, then at the beanbag on the floor. "This your Heaven?" he muttered, then pronounced, "It's weird."

No magic was revealed, and there was no bowing from this guy. He wasn't in garb, either, unless Moondoor had a new 80's roadie kingdom she didn't know about.

"Well, it's not yours!" she snapped, then she blew out of the side of her mouth at a stray lock of hair and added ruefully, "and you have no idea."

Charlie drew in a deep breath, planted her feet, hands on hips, and asked, "What was that black stuff, was that you?"

"No man, not me, and I got no idea, not yet, but it wrecked my rig." The stranger lifted a laptop he was holding a little higher in emphasis. Or at least about two thirds of one. It had definitely been a custom build, too, but part of it had been cleaved cleanly away.

"Huh," Charlie relaxed her stance and said, "ok, then, who are you, and why are you here?" Then she tensed, "You're not an angel, are you?"

"An angel," he scoffed, "Nah, I'm Ash. Been here before and noticed your playroom. Figured I could maybe use your gear since mine..." he lifted his busted laptop again and nodded toward it, then set it down on the table beside him.

Charlie was curious...and starting to feel not-bored. She scooted up onto a desk and crossed her legs, leaning forward. "You've been here before? You can move around Heaven?"

Ash waved absently, "Ain't that hard. Practical string theory. Comes in handy, sometimes, being able to come and go."

He flopped down onto a rolling desk chair and leaned back, the momentum scooting him a few feet backward. Hands clasped over his chest, he spoke to the ceiling, "Been sticking close to home mostly, what with things going to hell up here, as it were. Black stuff is new, though, haven't figured that out just yet."

"But you're going to?"

Ash smiled lazily, spinning the chair around enough to roll his head in her direction. "That's the plan."

Charlie decided she liked the dude's style.

She sat up straight. "Ok, then, Ash, I'm Charlie," she said, then grinned, "We have work to do."

Ash nodded and hefted himself back up with a grunt. Smiling crookedly, he said, "Alrighty, then."

And that is how Charlie's Heaven became not boring.


End file.
